While presidential challenger Tulsi Gabbard was the most searched for candidate on Google during the second round of Democratic debates, her rankings on Twitter stoked accusations that results were being manipulated.

Ahead of the Wednesday night debate, former VP Joe Biden dominated Google's search rankings. But Tulsi came out the clear winner across all fifty US states after the event started. Directly trailing Tulsi in the search trends was California Senator Kamala Harris at number two, while Biden held onto third place.

By large margins, Gabbard also repeated her victory in separate online polls organized by conservative media outlets, crushing Breitbart News' poll with 50 percent of the vote, and winning out in the Drudge poll at 39 percent.

The dovish Hawaii Congresswoman likely bolstered her search numbers in tangling with her fellow Democrats on stage, drawing wide praise and attention online after confronting Harris on her tough-on-crime record as a criminal prosecutor.

Contrasting her rankings on Google, Tulsi didn't perform quite as well in Twitter's "trending" category, a fact many on social media found suspicious. Some users suggested Tulsi was being deliberately "throttled" by Twitter to limit her reach on the platform.

A number of commenters also thought it strange that Syrian President Bashar Assad made it into Wednesday's trends ahead of Tulsi, despite her name consistently dominating that of Assad's in Google searches.

Others went into more detail in their speculation, with one user noting, in a lengthy thread, that at least one member of Twitter's communications staff previously worked for Kamala Harris.

Comment: ...which prompted Pentagon sockpuppets into a frenzy of activity to promote the canard that 'Russian bots' were behind the trend!

However, this is far from the first time questions have been raised over whether Twitter and other platforms are purposely skewing what users see in terms of trends. Notably, during the 2016 election, conservative critics accused Google of returning search results favorable to Hillary Clinton over other candidates, though the tech giant denied its searches were biased.

Last week, Tulsi filed a $50 million lawsuit against Google, arguing the company abridged her right to free speech by suspending her advertising account after the first round of Democratic debates; she also accused the company's email service, Gmail, of auto-flagging her campaign's emails as junk mail at "a disproportionately high rate" in contrast to other candidates.

Gabbard 'wins' every state, according to Google Trends

Comment: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey actually supports Gabbard, and he donated $5,600 to her campaign - the maximum individual donation - the day after the first round of debates.

Which goes to show that he, like the Zuck, doesn't really have much control of his organization. They and Google are effectively already functioning as 'utilities' - only they're privately, not publicly, controlled.

If Gabbard is not the Democratic nominee next June, you'll know they rigged it. Again.

At least this time more people than ever have the opportunity to watch them do it in real time.

"Honestly, it's pathetic that when confronted with the facts and the truth about her record that she claims to be proud of as a prosecutor, as attorney general of California, all she can do is lob cheap smears," Gabbard told Hill.TV on Thursday in response to Harris's remarks.

Following Gabbard's attack of her record as a prosecutor in California, Harris told CNN that she expected to "take hits," calling herself a "top-tier candidate" and noting Gabbard's low standing in recent polling.

The California senator also called out Gabbard for meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2017 and declining to call him a war criminal.

In her interview with Hill.TV, Gabbard re-upped her criticism over Harris's prosecutorial record, emphasizing that the senator's campaign is "predicated on being a champion for the people," particularly people of color.

"This is all a lie because when she was in a position to do something about it, when she was in a position to make a difference and truly be a champion for the people she furthered and perpetuated this unfair, unjust system that harmed many black and brown people in the state of California," she told Hill.TV.

Gabbard's comments mark the latest exchange between the two White House contenders after a brutal night of intraparty fighting among Democrats in the second round of Democratic debates.

During the debate, Gabbard said she was "deeply concerned" about Harris's record as a prosecutor, accusing her of locking up scores of of racial minorities for low-level drug offenses. She also accused the senator of hiding evidence that would free an innocent man on death row and keeping people imprisoned for longer sentences to use them as cheap prison labor.

"The people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor, you owe them an apology," Gabbard said.

Harris defended her record, saying she has done more than give "fancy speeches," an apparent dig at the congresswoman.

"I did the work of significantly changing the criminal justice system and I'm proud of that work, to not just give fancy speeches or be in a legislative body and give speeches on the floor but actually doing the work," Harris said on the debate stage.

Tulsi's got a long uphill climb considering that Harris seems to be the Establishment's choice. Notice the difference between these two interviews. Carlson sticks to the facts of the interchange between Harris and Gabbard. Chris Cuomo, instead of doing the same, immediately pivots to the tired canard that Gabbard 'supports a murderous dictator'. The MSM has been beating that dead horse for three years now, probably because that's all they've got to go after a reasonable, intelligent candidate. To Tulsi's credit, she managed to shut Cuomo up long enough make her points.

Hmmm. I think at the end of the day, it will be a battle between and Gabbard, the US, behind the scenes like the idea of a Female candidate as POTUS easy to manipulate.

The First US Female President, after all the rest of the world has made the choices of a female Leader, most with disastrous consequences .

Will it become a reality, they hate Trump and want to get rid of him, how about a Newbie, abnd a female at that, knows nothing regarding US diplomacy, all of a sudden in the office of POTUS, full of predators

Joan I don't think it has as much to do with the sex or even color of a candidate as much as it has to do with how much the elite can control them and not get into a situation where a President is actively working against them. They tend to assassinate those ones the moment they 'declare' themselves. Trump seems to have been manipulated in many ways, especially with regard to international relations, but they are still trying to get him out of office. I don't think it's because he's a Republican, or a man, or even white, I think it's because he does not represent them, allow them too much power, or apologize for them.

It continues to piss me off how much time and effort is wasted portraying the illusion that Twitter (or any social media site) "may" be bias, or they "might" be twisting the truth to support their agendas. Whether it's simply anti-Trump or warping facts to suit their version of reality, it's pathetic. If everyone would just assume that the social media monopolies, as well as the lame stream media have become entertainment and propaganda rather than news organizations, it would be easier for people to get accurate points of view on political issues.
Tulsi Gabbard has been attacked by her party many times in the past because she says things that seemingly go against what the left is pushing. That alone is a mark in her favor as far as I'm concerned!

The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.